


Drawn Together

by Morgana



Category: Angel: the Series, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-27
Updated: 2011-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he's 15, Sam stumbles across a painting of a vampire that will end up changing his life</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sam was fifteen when he saw _him_ for the first time. They'd been on their way to San Francisco, following up on a tip about a possible mermaid out near Alcatraz Island, and they'd stopped in a small town on the way. Dad had needed to check up with a few contacts and pick up some supplies, and apparently Sunnydale had one of the better magic shops around, with an owner that actually knew what he was doing. Dean took off for the bar as soon as he found out the local place wasn't too strict on carding, and Sam was doing his best to keep himself from lapsing into a coma from boredom when he spotted the art gallery.

The wind chimes over the door tinkled as he stepped inside, a light sound that made him smile as he looked around. The gallery wasn't all that big, but there was something about it, a sense of warmth and welcome, and he wanted to stay for a while. Apparently he wasn't the only one, judging from the way the other people in the shop strolled around, gazing leisurely at the pieces on the walls as though they were in a museum. Sam eased the door closed and started forward, freezing for a second when a motherly-looking woman glanced over at him and smiled.

He ducked his head and shuffled towards the first painting, staring at it for several seconds without seeing. He could feel the woman's gaze on him, drilling into his back like a knife, and he thought about what she must think, watching some kid walk into her gallery and look at paintings he'd never be able to afford. When he looked around to check if she was still there, he saw a quizzical expression pass over her face before their eyes locked. For a second, he thought she was about to throw him out, but she just smiled again and went back to a desk in the corner, where a customer was waiting for her.

Sam spent the remainder of the hour moving from one painting to the next, everything from great swathes of color on canvas to tribal designs and arcane symbols that were probably chosen just because they looked 'neat', rather than for the meanings he knew them to have. He was thinking about leaving when he caught sight of the painting next to the window, and instantly everything else was forgotten - Dad, Dean, the trip to San Francisco... Nothing mattered but that painting. He knew he had to have it, no matter how much it cost or what he had to do to get it.

A man lay on his stomach amidst crisp white sheets, sleepy blue eyes staring out at him from behind the barrier of his upraised arm. Sam found himself caught in the hypnotic gaze and the chiseled perfection of the man's face, staring for several minutes before he looked away at the tawny hair that tumbled down over one shoulder and the lock that fell slightly forward over his forehead. Sam's fingers itched to brush it back, and the longer he looked, the more he wanted to reach out and touch, to feel the sleek perfection of satin skin under his hand. The man in the painting was, quite simply, the most beautiful man Sam had ever seen and for the first time in his life he understood why people were willing to kill and die to possess someone, especially if that someone was anything like this man.

"I see you've discovered Spike," a voice behind him said. Spike. The name seemed strange, at odds with the beauty and softness in the man's eyes and the tender loving care that was evident in the brushstrokes that had been lavished on him. Sam turned around to see the woman smiling at him. She looked more like a mom than an artist, he noted, and he wondered absently if she knew that the symbols on her earrings were Scandinavian runes for protection against evil spirits or if she'd picked them just because they were pretty. Probably the latter - she didn't exactly seem like she read rune stones on a regular basis or anything. "It's a wonderful painting, isn't it?"

"It's incredible," he said, his voice sounding hollow and far away to his ears. "H-how much...?"

"I'm afraid it's not for sale. It was a gift from a... friend who knows how much I like art, and I couldn't possibly part with it." She hesitated, then offered, "I happen to know the artist, and I could contact him to see if he has any others like this that he might be willing to sell, if you'd like."

He should just walk away and forget about it, but Sam found himself giving her his real name and Bobby's mailing address, all in the hopes of getting a painting of a man he didn't even know. A man whose blue eyes haunted him long after he'd left the gallery, and Sunnydale, behind. A man that featured in his wildest, most secret fantasies for years before he discovered that the man wasn't a man at all, but a vampire, and one of the most feared and vicious vampires in history at that.

Of course, knowing that didn't make Sam stop wanting him, although he had the good sense not to tell Dean about it. He never would've heard the end of it if his brother discovered that Sam was lusting after the notorious William the Bloody, and he didn't even want to think about what would happen if Dean ever found out about the painting he'd worked two jobs to buy in his second year of college or worse, discovered the sketches that he kept tucked deep in his bag. It had been easy to make them from memory, and while they weren't nearly as good as the original had been, but Sam slept better after he made them - the fire had taken Jess and his home and everything else, but he'd managed to get a little something else back in the form of his copy of Spike. He never expected to have it replaced, and by one of the strangest vampires he'd ever met, too.


	2. Chapter 2

"You're here!"

Sam whirled around at the delighted cry, and while he didn't lower his gun right away, he did relax his stance just a bit. Monsters usually weren't this happy to see him, and he knew he'd never seen one clap its hands and bounce on its tiptoes before. He eased off the trigger before that part of himself that always sounded like Dean pointed out that most normal, human women didn't prowl around cemeteries after midnight, and most of them wouldn't giggle at the sight of a gun pointed at him the way this one was.

Ruby lips curved in an almost tender smile as she crooned, "I knew you'd come if I took the little lambs out of their beds."

And just like that, he was squeezing down on the trigger again. Somehow this fragile-looking woman had kidnapped the whole town's children, which meant she was definitely nobody to fuck around with. "Where are they?" he demanded.

"You'll get them back," she assured him, another soft laugh rippling through the night air. "Such a brave knight. Almost as brave as my boy, though his armor's dented and black now. The slayer and her shining key took him away from me, but you can bring him back, can't you?"

Sam told himself that negotiating with the crazy woman was probably better than shooting her. "Sure, I'll bring him back."

"Lies!" she snapped. "You want him for yourself! Think I don't know about the oil and the pretty girl and the flame, but it's all over you." She moved towards him, swaying with each step, like something out of time with her long white dress that caught the moonlight until it seemed to glow. "I know about you," she whispered, and somehow Sam had let her get close enough that she was running her fingertips up his chest. "Little boy in a burning nursery, dreams gone up in smoke and blood, queen, prince and princess all burned up -"

The gun fell to the ground as he grabbed her, hands digging into her arms. "Who are you?" How did she know about the fire? Had she been the one to set it?

One slender finger covered his mouth when he started to ask more questions. "Shhhh, pretty prince," she shushed. "Didn't burn them, but the bad man who did, he wanted to take it all away from you. Make you his, although you don't belong to him; not really."

Sam stared at her for a long minute, wondering why he hadn't just shot her when he first turned around. Dean would've called him ten kinds of idiot for it, would've said that they should just kill the monster and deal with finding the kids once she was dead. But something about her kept him from it, so he just asked, "Who do I belong to, then?"

She giggled again. "One prince always needs another, and I've seen yours. Your heart screams for him, you know," she confided in a low voice. "Like the stars scream for him, falling and burning and bleeding all around him."

He frowned, trying to puzzle her words out, but she didn't give him time before she pressed something into his hand. A wallet? It was about the right size, and leather, but not pliable enough. "Swear to me you'll find him," she hissed. "You'll take care of him better than the nasty slayer did, watch over him and bring him back." Sam's frown deepened, then gave way to a pained yelp when sharp nails dug into his hand. "Swear it!"

"I swear!" He has no clue exactly _how_ he's supposed to find whoever it is she's talking about, but the words seem to pacify her, because she laughs and pulls him down until his lips brush hers.

"Be good to my boy... he's been lost for so long," she whispered.

Sam nodded slowly, unable to look away from her eyes, so dark and luminous, sparkling like a lake in the moonlight. He wanted to delve into them, dive down until his lungs threatened to burst, wanted to just fall into her and let her take his worries away until he didn't have to think about missing kids or fires or dreams or demons.

"Sam!" His brother's voice jerked him out of his daze, and from the tone of his voice, it wasn't the first time he'd called him. Sam shoved the wallet into his pocket and hurried to pick up his gun. He trudged back to the car, Dean lecturing him every step of the way about what an idiot he was to stand there and wait for the monsters to eat him. He's right, of course; Sam's lucky the woman didn't decide to just rip his throat out and be done with it, but he wasn't about to admit that to Dean, so he just mumbled an apology and got into the car.

Dean was deep in protective big-brother mode, which meant the running commentary about Sam being monster chow didn't stop until they reached the motel. He pulled up in front of the room and shot Sam an exasperated look. "Go on inside; I'm gonna go for food. You want anything special?"

"Just a burger and fries." Sam dug his key out of his pocket as he slid out, watching Dean pull out before he headed into the room. He turned the light on, checked the salt line automatically to make sure it was secure, tossed the key on the table and laid it his gun down beside it, then finally sat down on the foot of his bed and pulled the woman's gift out to examine it.

Now that he could look at it in the light, he saw that it wasn't a wallet but a case of some kind. The leather was smooth, worn from age and handling, but it had been well taken care of, and he wondered why she would've given him something she obviously cared about. He had to turn it over in his hands a few times before he found the leather flap that was smoothed over the clasp, something that marked the case as an antique even more than the wear on the leather, although all of it was forgotten when he managed to get it open and saw what was inside.

A painting. It's a formal portrait, done from the chest up, and Sam absentmindedly noted the old-fashioned clothes as being 18th- or 19th-century, but he really wasn't looking at them too hard. He was caught in the eyes that looked out at him, captured by the light that played over the sharp features, too busy trying to remember if those eyes had really been that blue in his painting or if he hadn't remembered them right. And his face - had it looked like that before, his cheekbones that razor-sharp, or was that a trick of the painting? The heavy use of shadow in contrast to the light ( _chiaroscuro_ , his brain helpfully supplied - guess those art history & appreciation classes weren't a complete waste of time after all) made the sculpted cheekbones stand out even more, until Sam's fingers itched to reach out and touch. It was different from the others, posed where they'd been natural, but there was no mistaking the subject. This was undeniably Spike, and there's no doubt that the same artist had done it.

How had she gotten it? And how had she known about Sam's painting, or how it'd been lost? She had to have been a witch, or maybe a psychic. Maybe one of the other kids like him? But if that was the case, then how had she found a painting that was over a hundred years old and why had she given it to him? And why take the kids and use them as bait? There were too many questions and not nearly enough answers. Sam shivered as a chill ran down his spine at the memory of her eyes and how easily they'd pulled him in, how effortlessly she'd entranced him. Shit, Dean was right; he _was_ lucky he'd made it out of the cemetery alive!

A piece of paper caught his attention, tucked in behind the painting. He worked it carefully out, hoping it might contain some clue as to who the woman had been, but there were just three words written on it: United Methodist basement. Was that where the kids were? Sam drew in a sharp breath as he realized that she really had planned it, taken all those kids just so he and Dean would come looking and she could - what, give him a painting?!? It made no sense, and he didn't even want to think about what would've happened if some other hunters had shown up first, or if Dean hadn't broken speed limits to get them there because he had a soft spot for cases involving kids. Of course, if she was psychic, she already knew all that, but someone who'd go to those lengths was clearly insane, and there were about a hundred ways this could've gone wrong. Still could, if they weren't fast enough getting to the church, or if she decided she wanted to send some kind of a message...

Sam swallowed hard and tucked the case into his duffel, burying it under his jeans where he could be reasonably sure Dean wouldn't find it, then pulled up Google maps on the laptop. By the time Dean got back with their food, Sam had an address and directions ready for him. And if Dean assumed he'd figured it out on his own or gotten a vision, Sam figured that what his brother didn't know wouldn't hurt either of them. With luck, the kids would be back in their beds that night - or at least, most of them would be. He wasn't naive enough to think they were going to be able to save them all. They should hunt the woman who'd taken them down, but Sam couldn't help hoping she'd already left town. Sure, she was evil and crazy, but she'd given him a tiny piece of what he'd lost back, and he was grateful for that. He just hoped that didn't make him evil as well.


End file.
